This sea lion was on the South Rocks yesterday and again today with fishing gear or some other type of human-made garbage embeded around his neck. A report has been sent to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Monthly Archives: December 2011
Lightkeeper Eastwood News
From the BC Archives, this clip is from the Victoria Daily Colonist of August 20, 1905:
Misery delays boat launch
Julia and Jake cleaning solar panels
Yesterday I left the island around noon to go to campus and returned around 16:00 hrs with Jake. Erik brought out Julia, Jeanie and Mark in Second Nature. I took Jeanie and Mark back to campus today around 15:00 hrs, it was great to have them out here for a visit. Julia and Jake will be staying out here for a few more days. They did a great job scrubbing the solar panels today and carried several containers of deionized water across the island to the battery room. I did some cleaning in the battery room this afternoon.
The eco tour vessel Five Star Fast Cat came into the reserve this morning around 10:30.
Misery left Great Race yesterday around noon, taking his time on the boat ramp while I waited to launch the whaler, and is back on Middle Rock with the ladies. There were around 10 Sealions on South Rocks today and over 40 cormorants observed on South Rocks, Middle Rocks and the SW side of Great Race.
Misery taking his time on the boat ramp
Race Rocks Sponsors 2005-2011
Lester B. Pearson College– is one of ten United World Colleges located around the world. Two hundred students from over 80 countries study the International Baccalaureate curriculum during their two years at Pearson College. Garry Fletcher, a former faculty member who taught Environmental Systems and Biology at Pearson College, is the educational director of racerocks.com. Garry still works with students and staff to guide the educational content of the site. In addition, Laura Verhegge, also a faculty member teaching Biology and Marine Science provides additional guidance to the program. Pearson College operates the former Race Rocks light station facilities as a education centre under an agreement with BC Parks. Chris Blondeau, the Director of Operations for Pearson College provides the Operational Management of Race Rocks, and Ryan Murphy is employed by Pearson College as the on-site Ecoguardian. Pearson College is the lead proponent and partner directing the racerocks.com project.
Apple Computers (Canada)– The Computers we use for the live video webcasts from Race Rocks are all made by APPLE COMPUTERS. In July of 2000, Apple Canada became a partner in the Millennium Partnership program with the donation of a Macintosh PowerBook G3. 500 MHz. It followed up with further support in April of 2001 with the donation of a G4 500 MHz portable computer, and a G4 1GHz computer a year later. These new high speed computers have been essential in broadcasting the manually operated live programs from the islands. They have been a most valuable addition for our live video webcasting programs.
Apple Learning Interchange The QuickTime live video streams are being hosted by the Apple Learning interchange over the Akamai Internet distribution network. In April of 2001, a set of three airport cards was provided by ALI in order to make all the cameras webcasting wirelessly from the island. In late 2003, Apple has upgraded our equipment at Race Rocks with the contribution of 2 AirPort Extreme base stations and three 1GHz eMac computers for the webcasting cameras at Race Rocks. In addition, they provided funds for the purchase of the new robotic camera 5 for the island. Race Rocks support pages, ideas for educational applications and learning activities are available at: http://newali.apple.com/ali_sites/ali/exhibits/1000007/
TELUS has been a major supporter of the rac erocks.com since its inception. This link provides the history of our long term relationship and dependence on TELUS.In 2008 , Pacific Coast Environmental Metrics assisted by volunteering time to set up a new database to restore and improve the daily log for the racerocks.com website. PCEM donated the database hosting for the log
DONORS: This file presents several of our donors to the Race Rocks program.
The Hesse Family: Mr. and Mrs. Hesse of Metchosin have been long-term enthusiasts for ornithology. They decided to help us with our Race Rocks Program in 2003 and 2005 with a generous donation to the program. They have both passed away now but have left a generous legacy to the college.
Dr. Anita Brinkmann Voss : has provide long-term scientific support and financial assistance to the racerocks.com program.
In the design of the Race Rocks Taxonomy central index file, I have been able to rely on the freely available JavaScript DHTML code supplied by Andy Wooley of Milonic. The availability of such free assistance on the web has been essential to the building of this website .
Graduate Students: We are particularly fortunate to benefit from the services and support of a number of alumni of Lester B. Pearson College who have donated their time or have given direct financial assistance to racerocks.com
Ken Dunham ( PC year 9) has designed and implemented the advanced network at Pearson College, and recently extended these facilities across the water to Race Rocks.
Giovanni Rosso (PC year 24) has provided the money for a digital camera and a videocamera for underwater work at Race Rocks.
Jochen Kumm (PC year 10) has provided a computer for the Ecological Overview database.
Ryan Murphy (PC year 25) is now employed as the ecoguardian at Race Rocks and has provided images for the racerocks.com website.
Misery, Harbour Seals, Weather
Misery has been on Middle Rock Tuesday and Wednesday but was back by the boat house this morning.
There were over 40 Harbour Seals observed on the south side of the island and South Rock this afternoon.
Have had 3 days of grey skies and a sustained lack of precipitation. The wind peaked just over 20 knots on Tuesday and has stayed around 10 knots yesterday and today. Atmospheric pressure reached its lowest point in the past two weeks on Tuesday around 1015 hPa and has been on the rise today.
Facility Work
Facility work over the past few days has included:
-plumbing and burying the rainwater harvesting line
-changing oil in HP pump in desalinator unit
-installing new fuel connector in station whaler
-rebuilding a broken bed frame in the main house so there are now two guest beds/rooms available
-removing a faulty fan on composting toilet
-working on plans for a new composting container system
Also, the weather data on race rocks.com has been offline for several days and we have not been able to diagnose the problem yet.
Marine Vessels
On Tuesday a private vessel ID no. BC2789986 was in the reserve for several hours with one diver.
On Wednesday Eco Tour vessel operated by BC Whale entered the reserve around 15:30 hrs.
Today a dive vessel operated by Ogden Point Dive Group entered the reserve around 11:00.
Actitis macularius : Spotted Sandpiper –The Race Rocks Taxonomy
Image by Ryan Murphy
This is the first image taken of this species.This is an immature individual, (note lacking the spots of an adult). It is probably a local breeder. It breeds in fresh water areas throughout North America.
Domain Eukarya
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Chordata
Subphylum Vertebrata
Class Aves
Order Charadriiformes
Family Scolopacidae
Genus Actitis
Species macularius Linnaeus 1766
Common Name: Spotted Sandpiper
| Other Members of the Class Aves at Race Rocks |
 Return to the Race Rocks Taxonomyand Image File |
 The Race Rocks taxonomy is a collaborative venture originally started with the Biology and Environmental Systems students of Lester Pearson College UWC. It now also has contributions added by Faculty, Staff, Volunteers and Observers on the remote control webcams.
Ryan Murphy- Ecoguardian |
Frosty
Had a good frost last night out here. Have heaters on tonight in the water tank and desalination buildings.
I went off island this morning to run errands, came back around sunset.
Misery had been by the boathouse this morning, he was on the N side of the Science Centre when I got back this afternoon. A few minutes ago when I came out of the desalination building he had moved and was right there on the other side of the path, bit of a surprise for both of us.
Breakfast
There was a freshly killed seagull on the NE side of the island this morning. Soon after I had inspected it, a juvenile Bald Eagle came in to continue to deplume and consume it. The Eagle eventually flew off with the carcass to finish it off on Middle Rocks.
Misery was back on Great Race this morning, he has been behind the boat house all day.
For most of the afternoon there two dive boats near Middle Rocks.
I worked on a de-clogging a stubborn sink drain in the bathroom of the main house this morning.
A North wind peaked around 20 knots this morning and dropped to less than 5 knots for most of the rest of the day.